Death Toll from Syria Exceeds 220,000

The death toll from the conflict in Syria has surpassed 220,000 since it began four years ago, AFP reports.

“We have counted 222,271 deaths since the start of the revolt in March 2011,” Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP.

More than 67,000 of the dead were civilians, including more than 11,000 children, he said.

Nearly 47,000 pro-regime forces have been killed in the conflict, including more than 3,000 foreign fighters.

Among the dead, 40,000 were opposition fighters and nearly 28,000 foreign jihadis.

Foreign jihadis have traveled to Syria to fight for groups like the Islamic State and the Syrian al-Qaida affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra.

The group noted that the full death toll is likely much higher than the deaths it has been able to count.

The toll does not include some 20,000 people listed as missing.

Security Council Moved to Tears After Viewing Chemical Attack Video

U.N. Security Council members were moved to tears on Thursday after hearing first-hand accounts and viewing graphic footage of the most recent suspected chemical attack in Syria, AP reports.

Envoys heard from victims of chemical attacks and Dr. Mohamed Tennari, who treated victims from a half-dozen attacks over the past month in Idlib, in a private meeting called by the United States to draw attention to allegations of the use of chlorine as a chemical weapon in Syria.

Tennar showed a video from a hospital where victims were taken following a suspected chlorine attack on March 16 in his town of Sarmin, in Idlib province. The footage shows the unsuccessful attempts to revive three children, all aged under four.

The medical area was so cramped that one of the children was lying on top of their grandmother, who also died.

Samantha Power, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, said that it was an “extremely unusual and very emotional meeting.” She added that there were few “dry eyes in the room,” and that the Security Council would seek to determine responsibility for the attacks and hold the perpetrators accountable.

The U.S., along with France and Britain, has repeatedly accused the Syrian government of conducting such attacks – a charge that Damascus denies. The U.S., France and Britain say that the Syrian military is the only force involved in the conflict that has helicopters to deliver the toxic weapons.

The attack on Sarmin came less than two weeks after the U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution condemning the use of chemical weapons including chlorine in Syria and threatening action in the case of new violations.

Nonetheless, any such action would require approval from the Security Council, which remains deeply divided over the Syrian conflict.

Russia, a top ally of the Syrian regime and a veto-wielding member of the U.N. Security Council, has repeatedly said that there is insufficient evidence to assign culpability to the Syrian regime.

Syria Steps Up Airstrikes on Rebel-Held Areas of Aleppo

Syrian forces have killed more than 100 people in the northern city of Aleppo by dropping barrel bombs since Saturday, following a religious leader’s calls for attacks on rebel-held territory, the Wall Street Journal reports.

“I request from the Syrian state and the Syrian army, especially the military forces and the national forces in Aleppo … that [in response to] any shell that falls on Aleppo the whole area will be annihilated,” Sheik Ahmad Badir al-Deen Hassoun, a top religious leader in the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, told a pro-government television channel.

“Mr. Hassoun’s comments came after rebel fighters attacked a government-held neighborhood of Aleppo last week with more than a dozen mortars, killing nine people, according to both pro-government media outlets and opposition groups,” the Wall Street Journal writes.

Following the attacks, more than 50 barrel bombs have been dropped on rebel-held neighborhoods, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights. In addition to the barrel bomb attacks, at least five children were killed during a Syrian regime airstrike that hit a school in an opposition-held area in Aleppo last week.

The use of barrel bombs, containers packed with explosives and projectiles that are dropped from helicopters, has been widely documented by international human-rights organizations.

Human Rights Watch has documented more than 1,000 barrel-bomb impact sites in Aleppo since a resolution was passed in the U.N. Security Council calling for an end to their use in populated areas.

In an interview with CBS News in March, Mr. Assad dismissed the claim that the government was using barrel bombs, “There’s no such thing called barrel bombs. You have bombs, and any bomb is about killing, it’s not about tingling people.”

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